


the branches grow out of me

by somethingdifferent



Category: Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:53:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1748582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>I've had a rough year, Dad.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the branches grow out of me

_ Tree you are, _   
_ Moss you are, _   
_ You are violets with wind above them. _   
_ A child - so high - you are, _   
_ And all this is folly to the world. _

 

A Girl, Ezra Pound

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's almost winter when Rachel dies. The air bites against any exposed skin, and the leaves have all but abandoned their trees, only a few stubborn stalks still clinging to the branches in the cemetery. The rest crunch underfoot as Chas walks over the pavement; they crackle as he drives over them with his car, the little red flag waving feebly against the wind.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Chas becomes rich and successful with all the certainty of a very young man. Since his childhood (and it was early on in his childhood: he had grown accustomed to writing out checks when he was six; he learned to forge his mother's signature at age nine, and only asked for it out of unerring politeness; he had enough money in his own accounts not to ask his mother for money by age fourteen), he has understood that achievement of any kind, particularly financial, is a surefire way to ensure your future. He goes to school, works hard, meets a girl, gets married, gets rich, has kids. He does everything exactly right and exactly on time.

This, he had learned from an early age, because this is what the world had told him, in its own way, is how you play the game. And since the game has rules, it stands to reason it should reward you for following them.

No one ever prepared him for the day that it doesn't.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

He gets the call at work. Engine failure, someone tells him, his voice breaking up into pieces through the receiver. Your sons are safe, just a little shaken up.

"What about my wife, what about Rachel?" He thinks of this moment later, the hope that he still felt because maybe, _maybe_ she would be alright. He should've known, he thinks later. Even then he should've known.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Everyone offers their condolences. People from the office, people in his building, his siblings, his mother, his mother's accountant. Even Eli Cash calls, the cowboy wannabe, and says he heard the news, and he's so sorry, and have you read my book yet? I sent it over with some flowers.

Everyone calls. Everyone except for Dad.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The problem, he figures, is he had become too complacent. He, stupid and young and reckless, had assumed that playing by the rules would assure his and his family's security, their safety, financially, socially, and bodily. The way to prevent another accident, he decides, is to prepare better. Understand the fact that the rules of the game may change in the middle. Understand that there is nothing standing between his children and a bolt of lightning, that all the money in the world will not save them from a flash flood or a house fire.

He had made the mistake of taking his happiness for granted, believing that his love and money would be enough to protect his wife and children from harm, from _death_. It was a foolish assumption, he realizes, and one he will not make again.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Chas glances around the yard. The adrenaline is wearing off, leaving him feeling drained and tired and suddenly aware of how insane it must seem, how utterly crazed he must look. He hauled a man over a stone wall just seconds earlier, all for crashing into the side of a house that is still standing and killing a dog that should've died a year ago. Because, and here is the truth, as bitter a pill to swallow as it is: he knows better than anyone how close you can come to dying and still live, and how close you can come to living and still die. In a class in college, a professor had explained that if everyone in the world were to flip a coin, then eventually, somewhere, someone will get heads a hundred times in a row, and it wouldn't be special because such a thing must happen somewhere, to someone. And it would. Of course it would. And if there are six billion people on the planet, then that means that two little boys dying somewhere is bound to happen, and so it stands to reason that it could happen to him. And this is a fact. This is how the game is played. And Chas understands this, so he went a little crazy, maybe, and tried to beat a man to death, and perhaps threw him over a wall into the neighbor's backyard.

He wants to cry, for a moment. Instead, he climbs over the wall after Eli.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"These things happen," his mother tells him, her voice all calm and collected and shit. She runs her hand along his head, cupping the side of his face like he is a boy of four again, and he has fallen from the slide in the park.

Chas looks up, and his vision is blurry. For a horrible second, he can't understand why.

"But they aren't _supposed_ to," he replies, with all the petulance and surety of a child.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

On the day of the accident, everything is normal. There is no sense of foreboding, there is no blowout argument to regret later, there is no spidey sense just before he gets the call that tells him the news before he hears it. It is nothing like what he has been lead to believe based on books and movies and magazines. He gets up in the morning, listens to Ari and Uzi arguing over who is going to sit where on the plane, eats his breakfast, drinks his coffee too fast. He kisses Rachel goodbye before he leaves for work, a peck on the lips as he nudges her on the way out the door. His last words to her are, "I love you. I'll see you at home." Her last words to him are, "Have a good day. Goodbye, sweetheart."

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

He is kneeling with his father and a dalmatian named Sparkplug.

"I've had a rough year, Dad," he says, and hardly even flinches when his voice cracks.

Royal Tenenbaum smiles, a little sadly, and his voice is understanding when he says in return, "I know you have, Chassie." 

His father's hand on his shoulder is warm and reassuring. Chas decides not to shake it off like he would every other time. For right now, it's feels sort of okay.

 

 

 

 


End file.
